Blair Sells Kids' Brains To Car Dealer

Blair Sells Kids' Brains To Car Dealer

Although Britons might be just waking up to the idea that their army is firing faith based bullets at Iraqis, many have been concerned for some time that their children's education is being handed over to Blair's evangelical friends. This threat to British kids' brains can, indeed, be found in the Labour Manifesto. Page 37 contains the innocuous seeming...

"We strongly support the new Academies movement. Seventeen of these independent non-selective schools are now open within the state system; their results are improving sharply, and 50 more are in the pipeline. Within the existing allocation of resources our aim is that at least 200 Academies will be established by 2010 in communities where low aspirations and low performance are entrenched."

Now for those unfamiliar with Academies (or "City Academies" as they were originally called), they are an innovation of New Labour's education reforms and they work something like this. If you are an individual, charity or miscellaneous organisation with couple of million quid in your pocket, you can invest in a "failing" state school somewhere in urban Britain. In return for your, relatively, modest contribution the state will supply tens of millions of pounds to knock down the old school buildings and replace them with a state-of-the-art shiny new "Academy". You then get to choose which teachers to employ and which kids to teach. Crucially, unlike your state school neighbours, you won't be burdened with having to stick to the national curriculum and can use alternatives like the American import: Accelerated Christian Education (ACE).

Enter Peter Vardy, Christian fundamentalist former car dealer, educational entrepreneur and friend of Tony Blair. His Emmanuel Trust already runs several schools in the North of England and is just itching to get its hands on more "failing" schools and turn them into places where every teacher is a "full-time Christan worker". The people behind the Emmanuel Trust believe, for instance, that "homosexuality is against God's design" and that religious "truths" should be given equal weight alongside scientific fact.

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Parliamentary answer on the science curriculum

Thanks to 'Blackshadow for this (www.creationism.co.uk):

Creationism has no place in science lessons

http://www.humanism.org.uk/site/cms/newsarticleview.asp?article=2154

On 27th February, Jacqui Smith answered a parliamentary question
tabled by MP Keith Vaz.

His question was: `To ask the Secretary of State for Education and
Skills what her policy is on the teaching of creationism as a
subject in schools; and if she will make a statement.'

In her reply, the minister said that pupils should "be taught
about "how scientific controversies can arise from different ways of
interpreting empirical evidence". Also, the biblical view of
creation can be taught in RE lessons, where pupils are taught to
consider opposing theories and come to their own, reasoned
conclusions. Therefore, although creationism and intelligent design
are not part of the national curriculum, they could be covered in
these contexts."

Click here for her full answer.

The BHA has written to DfES ministers Jacqui Smith and Lord Adonis
asking whether the Government really considers "that creationism
and `intelligent design' are examples of scientific theories based
on empirical evidence within the meaning of the national
curriculum."

The letter explains that this is the BHA's specific concern in Ms
Smith's written answer:

"Our specific concern is your interpretation of the phrase `how
scientific controversies can arise from different ways of
interpreting empirical evidence' in the national curriculum
programme of study for science at key stage 4. You say that
creationism and `intelligent design' "could be covered in these
contexts.

"From discussions with science teachers, the BHA had understood that
the controversies covered under this section over evolution
specifically were only those with some claim to being genuinely
scientific, such as the discredited Lamarckian theory. We are
concerned, therefore, to hear the government endorsing the view of
religious extremists that, firstly, a scientific controversy to do
with creationism actually exists, and secondly that it could be
taught in a state-funded school."

For the full letter click here.

Andrew Copson, education officer at the BHA said, "It seems
inconceivable that the government should give even tacit approval to
the teaching of creationism as a scientific theory. That they should
approve its teaching within the national curriculum for science is
outrageous."

Science, Education, Evolution, Intelligent Design, Creationism

The Hidden Dangers of Fundamentalism

The Hidden Dangers of Fundamentalism

A connection exists between disease outbreaks and extreme religious practice
By Jack Woodall

Religious fundamentalism is bad for your health. There are, of course, the ill effects suffered by suicide bombers and their innocent victims. Consider also the sarin gas attacks by the Aum Shinrikyo (Supreme Truth) sect, which killed 12 people in the Tokyo subway in 1995, and sickened 1,000 more. (Yes, I know the media reported 5,000 casualties, but 80% of them were the "worried well" who sought hospital emergency departments because of contact with victims, or consequent anxiety attacks).

What concerns me, however, is infectious disease. Consider these case histories:

» The last outbreak of polio in Canada and the United States, in 1978–1979, was the result of travel from the Netherlands, where an outbreak was ongoing, to Canada by members of the Reformed Netherlands Congregation, a religious group that refused vaccinations.

» In Uganda in 1998, an outbreak of cholera killed 83, and the resurgence of the disease was blamed on members of a sect in Soono Parish who hid patients from medical patrols. The sect was called Red Cross (not to be confused with the international relief organization), a group that collects dead bodies in the belief that resurrection is imminent.

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Science, Education, Intelligent Design, Creationism